MONDAY, JUNE SIXTEENTH
by apostrophicfolk
Summary: We all know the rules of behavior out at Camp Crystal Lake -- no drugs, no sex, or he will come. When a group of young adults decide to test those limits, they find that even good behavior won't go unpunished.


MONDAY, JUNE SIXTEENTH

God help us, we'd done everything right. From the first sounds echoing out through the woods near camp – dogs, I believe – to the flickering of the lamps, we knew that something wrong was in the air, and that we had to leave.

Alex and Donna had to be interrupted. Yes, this was their weekend. Hell, they had been planning it for months. But even they, burning though they were in the throes of hormones and new love, knew better. This area had history. We all knew that history. A part of us were there because we knew we could become history for the next group of young adults out for a weekend of flirting with death and each other. And after the first shadows, and after the dogs suddenly stopped their song, Alex and Donna pulled together their belongings hastily – so did we all. What we could not immediately grab could be left behind.

Grant, Felix, and Beth were quickly rescued from the Jacuzzi, and sped with us on padded feet to the van. Their minds were clear enough – though the pot they smuggled in was legendary in our hometown, and Felix's joints were tighter than Beth's jeans, they had somehow remained unsmoked for the duration of that cool Friday evening. Those who know history … well … we talked of everything but that history as the van cruised out of the heavily wooded darkness toward the lights of civilization. Even Grant remained restrained, and did not light his bowl until the signs for the city were visible, and until we were sure that the white and green figure we had seen looming behind us was not a masked killer but a birch playing games with the shadows …

God help us, we'd done everything right. Harry and I did not spend the weekend together, even though neither of us wished to be alone. Saturday morning, convinced I would not fall asleep, I called each of my companions: Grant, Felix, Beth, Alex, Donna, Harry … everyone was awake, but intact. There had been no visitation. We were safe.

We were safe.

#

Monday the 16th began like every other workday. I crept quietly into my cubicle, turned on my computer, and gazed down the barrel of a long workweek, this one without the lure of a weekend getaway.

"So … " Patty, one cubicle over. Same job as mine.

"We didn't stay."

"Why not?"

There were so many reasons I could give her. Some legends are true. There are evils in this world that cannot, will not be stopped. That life is an amazing one-time quantity, that can either be preserved or lived and we chose …

"Rain."

What had once been her natural lips imitated a frown. "Oh."

"Yeah."

Like the shadow of a shark, Monday lumbered silently into unknown depths.

#

Sleep must finally have found me at lunch. I lay in a widening pool of my own fluids, rocked to slumber by the rattling hum of the Dr. Pepper machine. My sleeve must have marked my cheek, which felt rough, almost corrugated. I checked my makeup in the snack machine glass, and there he was, right behind me.

Except he wasn't.

I did not have to turn around, and I would not embarrass myself in front of the others by doing so. He would not be there. Correction: he would not be _here_. This was not his world. His world was feral, a hunter's paradise, where camouflage was a skill, not a liability. He belonged to a magic lake, and lived on the bloody fruits of the forest. This office was my world, and it is killing me.

I rummaged in my purse for seventy-five cents, and bought a packet of low-fat chips while he watched through his eyeless mask.

Around seven I had done enough work to call this a day, and was surprised to find Harry waiting for me by my car. Despite the June heat, he had taken on his green fatigue jacket over a simple white tee. He must be sweltering.

"No work tonight?"

"I called in sick. Don't know if I can bring myself to serve drinks, make idle chitchat."

"Anything wrong?"

He shrugged, and took me home.

#

"We don't have to do anything."

"I know."

"We can just watch TV."

"Sure."

#

I slept again, somehow, but tumbled and turned. When I woke at 3, Harry was still sitting in the chair where he was when I began to doze. Now it wasn't me he watched, but the moon.

"Does he care about the moon?"

I didn't answer.

#

Tuesday was forgotten as it happened. Wednesday I met Alex and Donna for lunch. We talked about the music and how it was changing, how it wasn't what it was, how we hit the gym more. We did not talk about whether they had finally come together, although I noticed Donna watching Alex as Alex watched the waitress, and I watched them both pay separately.

"We should do this again soon," Donna said.

"Do what?"

"Eat. Lunch. Have a Cobb salad."

"I wonder if they're hiring," Alex said.

"Like you'd work lunches."

"What does it mean," I asked slowly, "that I don't want to go back into work?"

Donna smiled. "It means you're like everyone else."

"I mean ever."

"So do I."  
"I'd work lunches," said Alex. "It just seems like they get a lot more action here."

"I'm serious. Do you guys have plans for this weekend?"

Both of them stopped and looked at me, knowing what I was asking even before I did. My city – I call it my city because I have nothing else – is preternaturally loud. On a Wednesday afternoon in the summer, this particular street in this particular section of town is a wave of sensory information – those colors people wear, the things they say, the cars they drive or are driven in, the wafting smells from a district of restaurants, and the collective breath of the city as it sighs when things pass – you can imagine, it's a lot to take in. Alex tossed two bills down for a tip, stood, crossed to the sidewalk, and for a moment I thought he was going to leap out in front of a bus. Instead, he disappeared into the grand mass of local travel.

"I really thought something was going to happen," Donna said.

"Me too." I watched a woman feed a latte to her teacup poodle. "Maybe we could set something else up?"

"Why are you going here?"

"Where?"

"Here. There. You know what's there."

"I know."

Donna, as was her habit, ripped the edges off all the sweetener packets she wasn't using and dumped the contents out into a pile on the table. She had been cared for her whole life. Messes belonged to other people. She was young and beautiful, and just bad enough to be attractive to both sexes. She ran a frosted fingernail over the pile, smoothing it down as she talked.

"There's a whole world here, Karen. A world of guys, and fun, and anything else you might like to do. Things that don't involve strange, rustic locations and insects and –"

"What do you want me to do, Donna? I'm not wired like you."

"Then change your wiring."

"What for? There isn't anything here for me, no matter what you say."

Donna raised a finger. "Excuse me, miss? Can I have more sweetener, please?"

"You're gonna tell me you aren't at least excited … by the prospect …?"

"Yes," Donna said, glowering. "I'm telling you exactly that."

And she was gone. She left behind her purse, her sunglasses, and the shape she had been tracing in the pile of sugar. The shape of an eyeless mask.

#

Thursday was the day Felix suddenly decided to move back in with his parents all the way out west, in Colorado. We had seen pictures, and heard stories. There was no reason for him to move back. There was nothing for Felix in Bow Mar, Colorado. He was young, intelligent, gay, and an unrepentant pothead. His parents hated what he had become, a fact Harry insisted Felix acknowledge while we packed away his things. By the time the boxes were taped and sealed, and Felix's handmade paraphernalia had been divvied up among the remaining smokers, we came to terms with the fact that Felix had agreed to be changed. His things would leave on a FedEx truck the next morning. He would take a flight out Saturday.

"We need to celebrate," Grant declared.

"I need to get drunk," Donna growled, eyeing the waitress Alex had brought along.

Beth stole into her bedroom and emerged with two unopened bottles of vodka and a half-empty bottle of bourbon, to the cheers of everyone in the group. Even Felix, whose eyes had lost all luster, whose face was rigid and white, seemed to brighten just for a moment.

But somewhere in the out-of-doors a twig snapped, and we felt that we were not alone. No one went to the window. No one walked out into the darkness to check. No one cracked open the vodka or poured the already-open bourbon, nor did anyone kiss or flirt or even swear. When Alex's waitress wanted to leave, we convinced her to remain with this sad fellowship of souls. We remained at the table. The bottles, the bowls, the beds – all unfinished business.

#

"TGIF," said Patty in her sing-song voice. "I know what I'm doing this weekend."

"Yeah?"

"Mark's taking me out for tapas. The kids are with their favorite sitter, Laurie, and she's staying all night." Patty crumpled with glee. "We're getting a hotel room!"

"Good for you," I said, trying my best to mean it.

Harry walked in, dressed almost like a scout. Canteen, cargo pants, pocketknife affixed to his belt. Patty ogled him, and I didn't care.

"Ready?"

"Let me e-mail my notice," I told him. "And … send."

"Notice?" Patty asked. "You aren't quitting?"

I left her the rest of my workload and skipped out to the van. All the others were already packed in. Alex had somehow convinced the waitress to come aboard, and had convinced Donna to be cool with it. Somewhere in everyone's mind there was the notion that a threesome between them, if such a thing were to occur, might hasten things along a little bit. Felix took the middle space on the back row of seats, and his eyes were crystal blue pools on a lake of fire.

I climbed into the passenger seat, still on the fence about whether Harry and I would consummate our relationship this weekend. It was tempting – he looked so virile in the driver's seat, like a lumberjack. Or maybe the tin woodsman.

Harry flashed me a wink. "Anybody buckled in?"

"No," came the chorus through a cloud of smoke.

"Fantastic," he said, and the van lumbered silently toward the old camp.


End file.
